The Mission of Autism and Scouting is to develop programs, projects, support and resources for all scouts on the Autism spectrum, their families, caregivers and scout leaders that promote acceptance, inclusion, support skills for life and support self-advocacy within a scouting program. We support all scouting programs in the US and around the world.

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Thursday, August 2, 2012

Amazing July at Autism and Scouting

We have had an amazing July here at Autism and Scouting. We hope that your July went well also. We wanted to give you a recap of what we were able to do this month.

Autism and Scouting Radio

For starters, we launched our Radio/Blog Program and have had some amazing guests. Here is a brief recap of who we had on and what we talked about.

Our first broadcast was with Karen Krejcha the Executive Director and co-founder of Autism Empowerment. Autism Empowerment is the non-profit organization that brings you the Autism and Scouting Program. We talked about the four foundational pillars of Accept, Enrich, Inspire and Empower. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/autismandscoutingradio/2012/07/06/autism-and-scouting-radioThen we had Tony Mei who is the Chairman of the Boy Scouts of America Special Needs Committee where we talked about his work on the Committee and the dedication the BSA has to providing Autism Training in future to its leaders. Tony will be coming back on in August and September to talk about certain topics. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/autismandscoutingradio/2012/07/11/tony-mei-and-working-with-scouts-with-disabilitiesTony was followed by Sean Williams who put together the Great Race 2 Autism Awareness. This training that he developed will be the basis for the Autism Awareness Challenge at the 2013 National Jamboree. We went through all of the stages of the Great Race for Autism and will be using parts of it in our upcoming training presentations with CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate) and the BSA Counsel training conference.http://www.blogtalkradio.com/autismandscoutingradio/2012/07/20/the-great-race-for-autism-awarenessAdam Cox aka ScouterAdam, was next up on the radio dial and we talked training and about working with Cub Scouts on the Autism Spectrum. We talked about his personal journey with his son who has Asperger’s. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/autismandscoutingradio/2012/07/26/cub-master-scouter-adam-1It turned a bit silly and unpredictable but definitely fun when we had Ryan, a new Tiger Scout who is on the autism spectrum visit Autism and Scouting Radio. His Mom (Akela) was with us too. The interview was funny and charming and Ryan let his light shine. We talked to Ryan about his first camping outing, archery, butter making and so much more. He gave a great call to action for all kids worldwide to join scouts. It really is a must listen. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/autismandscoutingradio/2012/07/27/tiger-cub-ryan-and-his-viewWe finished out the month with Erika Schron who is the mother to three scouts, two on the Autism Spectrum and the third with ADHD. We talked about the challenges and successes for each at different stages of the scout’s scouting careers. It was really wonderful to talk to her and see what scouting has done for her sons. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/autismandscoutingradio/2012/07/31/a-moms-perspective-on-scoutingIn August, we have many more guests scheduled and we are already starting to book people into September. If you would like to share your story or know of anybody that you would like to see interviewed or you have a topic idea for a future broadcast, please let us know by emailing john@autismempowerment.orgIn addition to this, we also launched the Autism and Scouting Radio Blog to support the radio show. http://autismandscoutingradio.blogspot.com/ At this site, you can find links to all of the upcoming shows as well as the previous shows available on demand at anytime.. We are trying to raise funds as soon as possible to expand to radio broadcasts. As a non-profit organization, we rely on public support and need your generosity to help continue our program. Your help of any amount is greatly appreciated.

Please consider your tax deductible donation so we can continue the work of Autism and Scouting. Of if you know of a business that would like to help this unique program, that helps scouts directly that are on the Autism Spectrum in the realm of scouting, please let us know! The month was a huge success when it comes to Autism and Scouting Radio.

Multi Media

Facebook

The Facebook page of Autism and Scouting continues to grow. The number of scouting friends at our Facebook page passed the 700 mark this month and is growing very strong. We are now in over 30 nations with over 70 scouters in the UK (8 different regions) and over 50 in Australia (6 different regions). In the US, we have scouters for both the Girls Scouts of America and Boy Scouts of America (over 44 US BSA Councils). The Facebook page and group aim to be positive sources for Acceptance, Enrichment, Inspiration and Empowerment when working with scouts on the Autism Spectrum, thank you so much for all of your support. The Facebook page can be reached at http://www.facebook.com/autismandscouting We would love to be over 1000 strong before the end of the year. We also still support the Facebook group that was founded in August of 2010. That can be reached at http://www.facebook.com/groups/121685817883439/Also, please like our Facebook page for Autism Empowerment as well as our Autism Empowerment Radio Facebook page.http://www.facebook.com/autismempowermenthttp://www.facebook.com/autismempowermentradio

Twitter - https://twitter.com/AutismScoutingTwitter we are still going strong as well. We have over 300 followers and we are reaching many scouting groups via Twitter. Blog - http://autismandscouting.blogspot.com/We have expanded and changed our look here at Autism and Scouting Blog. We have added many more new tabs to the Blog to support leaders and all who wish to learn more about how you can support a scout on the Autism Spectrum. The Tabs we added were, Autism and Scouting Radio, Programs (talks about programs of Autism and Scouting), What is Autism? (a clinical look at Autism), Resources (links to other resources), Ways You can help (find out how you can help support this program) and then links to the Autism Empowerment Website, Autism and Scouting Facebook page and then to Twitter. Let us know what else you would like to see and we see what we can do. July, we also posted one of the highest amounts of blogs since I started this blog. In addition to this, we also launched the Autism and Scouting Radio Blog to support the radio show. http://autismandscoutingradio.blogspot.com/ which was also mentioned above. Leadership TrainingWork is progressing on Leadership Training. We have been asked back to the Cascade Pacific Council’s 2013 Excellence and Training Conference to present the training we did in 2012 and to also offer an advanced course. Autism Empowerment may also have a booth at the training conference providing additional resources. We are making process toward our work on a Leadership Training kit which will include information that will help all scouting leaders be successful. Visuals are still being produced to help scouts be more successful within the context of a scouting program. Autism Empowerment and the Autism and Scouting program has also been asked to join a local troop and act as a guide to making their troop more sensory friendly and setting up a sensory friendly patrol within this typical troop. We will be working in the upcoming months on this project and then documenting and having this information available to other units. We have also helped review other Autism trainings that other scouting leaders have put together in order to provide the best possible training. As you can see, it has been a busy month. We need your support in order to continue the work we have started. We truly can’t do it without help and you can be part of that solution! Please assist us by making a tax deductible donation to Autism Empowerment to help keep the Autism and Scouting program around. THANK YOU!

Accept, Enrich, Inspire, Empower!

To learn more about Autism Empowerment, a 501(c)(3) public charity and to help financially support our Autism and Scouting Program, please visit:

About Me

The Mission of Autism and Scouting is to develop programs, projects, support and resources for all scouts on the Autism spectrum, their families, caregivers and scout leaders that promote acceptance, inclusion, support skills for life and support self-advocacy within a scouting program. We support all scouting programs in the US and around the world.